1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to reverse billing of phone calls.
2. Description of the Related Art
A. Search Listings
In a February 2001 survey when asked where their online purchases originated, 55% of the 2,288 U.S. respondents indicated “search listings”. (NPD Group) The proliferation of the Internet has created a massive consumer marketplace driven by the technology of search engines. Second only to email, web searching is the most popular activity of U.S. Internet users. (U.S. Department of Commerce) The emergence of search listings as the superior online branding medium in profits and effectiveness has given rise to a new type of marketing strategy—search engine marketing.
More and more companies are seeking creative ways to increase traffic to their web sites. One of those methods involves increasing company exposure and ranking in search listing results. In another report, it was found that 92% of online consumers use search engines to shop for and purchase items on the Internet. (NPD Group) The same report shows that good search engine rankings are two to three times more effective in generating sales than banner ads. (NPD Group)
Search engines have become one of the most effective means of connecting consumers with the products and services they seek. With so much business dependent on the output of search listing results, search engines and other types of listing services such as web portals and Internet Yellow Pages (IYP), are seeking new ways to capitalize on their technology.
B. The Cost-Per-Click Model
Cost-per-click embodies the interactivity of hyper-linking and the Web—the advertiser pays only for the page views that were clicked through from ads or links on a publisher's site. Cost-per-click is a trackable and provable method that generates leads for the advertiser in a cost effective manner.
Cost-per-click (CPC) marketing (also referred to as PPC, or Pay Per Click marketing) is based on the bid-for-placement advertising model. Cost-per-click search engine marketing essentially allows a merchant to “pay” to have its web site listed on result pages of major search engines in the form of text links and/or ads. These links are often called Paid Listings, Sponsored Links, Sponsored Listings, and Featured Listings—all of which will be referred to as Paid Listings. In general, the higher a merchant's bid, the closer to the top of the Paid Listings results the merchant's web site advertisement is placed. Therefore, if a merchant's ad has the highest bid, the merchant's site listing will appear at top of the Paid Listings results page. If the merchant's bid is the second highest, then the merchant's advertisement will appear second, and so forth.
For the major CPC engines, the top three to five bid positions are the ones that receive the highest amount of distribution across their search partner networks. When search engine visitors click on a CPC ad, they are sent to the advertiser's web site. CPC advertisers are only charged when someone clicks on the advertisement and visits the advertiser's web site.
CPC search listings are growing for two reasons: (1) The CPC model gives advertisers the ability to reach prospects when they're actively searching the Internet for goods and services; and (2) Advertisers can easily measure their return on investment (ROI). The result is a mutually beneficial relationship enabling merchants to drive more traffic to their web sites through effective advertisement, while search engines capture revenue in return for their lead generation technology. CPC strategies allow merchants to work within their budget and quantify the results of their advertising effort.
While the CPC marketing strategy has proven its worth to many merchants with a web presence, it alienates merchants that do not have web exposure in the form of e-commerce, or simple company-profile web sites. As a result, many of these merchants rely more heavily on local community exposure rather than broad web exposure. Local exposure includes traditional marketing mediums such as television, newspapers, magazines, traditional yellow pages, billboards, etc. Despite the diversity of available exposure mediums, the most common element present in all forms of advertising is simply a telephone number. The telephone remains one of the most common and effective forms of business to business and consumer to business communication. While the Internet is growing in popularity year by year, the Internet penetration rate is only at 68.8% as of July 2004 (Neilsen/NR), compared to telephone subscribership at 94.1% of American households. (FCC/Bureau of the Census)
C. The Rise of the Internet Yellow Pages (IYP)
Advancement in the digital age has catapulted the once static yellow page book listings into the Internet realm, offering merchants yet another medium of exposure. Traditional yellow page book listings have been migrated to the web to form an ever-growing network of Internet Yellow Pages (IYP).
Today, IYP directories are playing a pivotal role in providing the consuming public access to everything from where to buy a pizza to where to find a qualified plumber. It has been reported that there were more than 1.5 billion references to IYP in 2001. (Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association) Of those referencing an IYP, 59% made a contact and 60% made a purchase or intended to do so. Coupled with search engine technology, IYP provides an undeniable benefit to advertisers. The information merchants present in IYP ads is user-initiated and is perceived as an information resource rather than an advertisement. For this reason, average response rates to IYP listings are in the range of ten times higher than other forms of online advertising.
D. The Market Problem
One advantage to IYP when compared to traditional search engine listings is that merchants do not need to have a website to advertise. A distinction between IYP and traditional search engine listings lies in searchers viewing categories of listings, such as “plumbing” or “restaurants”—not necessarily keyword results. While click activity and post-click behavior in IYP listings are consistent with the CPC model, nearly 75% of responses to IYP listings are made as phone calls. (Spring 2003, Harris Interactive) This becomes problematic for the CPC marketing strategy since a phone number is not “click-able” with traditional web browsing, and phone calls are not readily trackable with traditional web listings. With traditional web browsing there is no easy way for advertisers to quantify the effectiveness of their IYP listings, nor is there an efficient way for IYP providers and listing agents to capitalize on positive lead generation resulting from IYP listings.
In addition, paid search sites are struggling to unlock the profits of local searches. There is a consumer need for relevant localized information. IYP providers want to capitalize on the success and adoption rates of CPC marketing in relation to IYP listings.